"O ye who believe! Be steadfast witnesses for Allah in equity, and let not hatred of any people seduce you that ye deal not justly. Deal justly, that is nearer to your duty. Observe your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is Informed of what ye do." [Al-maeda ,8]

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Mad troop worshipers say we need martial law to improve things. A kind reminder for them:

a) This war mess is a gift from Musharraf martial law.

b) The initial mistake of jumping into cold war was made by military and Ayub’s martial law regime and the same policy was followed by Yahya, Bhutto (A civilian martial law administrator appointed by army and trained by General Ayub) and Gen Zia.

c) 90s, despite corruption and mismanagement was much safer and better.

d) Many national institutions like SUPARCO,NESCOM, NLC (the collapsed bridge fame) etc are under direct or indirect control of army. In most countries such institutions are run by civilians. SUPARCO is a failed organization when it comes to research and development in real space sciences and astronomy. Most of the time they do some missile work and some work with Chinese companies. The reason is simple that instead of being led by top level scientists it is being run by former or serving khakis with no brain.

e) Even the biggest city of Pakistan i.e. Karachi is directly or indirectly under administrative control of occupied armed forces in the form of DHAs, military cantonments and civil cantonment areas who have to pay extortion not only to local political and land mafias but also to military mafias (in the form of absurd charges and taxes) who milk money from civil cantonment areas, put restrictions on civilian liberties and don’t do shit to improve things there.

f) Not only that, army is doing everything from running marriage halls, banks, factories and it has occupied a great deal of land and other economic resources of this country.

g) Army ,ISI and MI waste resources on spying journalists, judges and creating puppets in media (like Zaid Hamid) and politics or shutting down channels like Geo.

It shouldn’t be hard to see why we continuously see intelligence and security failures or why we are still stuck in this war on terror mess? The prime security institution was never designed to be a defender of people or constitution, it was designed by British to work as proxy rulers. Cantonment areas are a reminder of such mindset. It will be interesting to see how much area of Newyork, Shanghai, Mumbai, London or even #Moscow is controlled by army like the so called Pakistan army and air force control or occupy Karachi.

Office of the Assistant to the President on Foreign Relations & International Cooperation

___________________________________________________________

For Immediate Release, July 3, 2013

As I write these lines I am fully aware that these may be the last lines I get to post on this page.

For the sake of Egypt and for historical accuracy, let’s call what is happening by its real name: Military coup.

It has been two and a half years after a popular revolution against a dictatorship that had strangled and drained Egypt for 30 years.

That revolution restored a sense of hope and fired up Egyptians’ dreams of a future in which they could claim for themselves the same dignity that is every human being’s birthright.

On Januray 25 I stood in Tahrir square. My children stood in protest in Cairo and Alexandria. We stood ready to sacrifice for this revolution. When we did that, we did not support a revolution of elites. And we did not support a conditional democracy. We stood, and we still stand, for a very simple idea: given freedom, we Egyptians can build institutions that allow us to promote and choose among all the different visions for the country. We quickly discovered that almost none of the other actors were willing to extend that idea to include us.

You have heard much during the past 30 months about ikhwan excluding all others. I will not try to convince you otherwise today. Perhaps there will come a day when honest academics have the courage to examine the record.

Today only one thing matters. In this day and age no military coup can succeed in the face of sizeable popular force without considerable bloodshed. Who among you is ready to shoulder that blame?

I am fully aware of the Egyptian media that has already attempted to frame ikhwan for every act of violence that has taken place in Egypt since January 2011. I am sure that you are tempted to believe this. But it will not be easy.

There are still people in Egypt who believe in their right to make a democratic choice. Hundreds of thousands of them have gathered in support of democracy and the Presidency. And they will not leave in the face of this attack. To move them, there will have to be violence. It will either come from the army, the police, or the hired mercenaries. Either way there will be considerable bloodshed. And the message will resonate throughout the Muslim World loud and clear: democracy is not for Muslims.

I do not need to explain in detail the worldwide catastrophic ramifications of this message. In the last week there has been every attempt to issue a counter narrative that this is just scaremongering and that the crushing of Egypt’s nascent democracy can be managed. We no longer have the time to engage in frivolous academic back and forth. The audience that reads this page understands the price that the world continues to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Egypt is neither Afghanistan nor Iraq. Its symbolic weight and resulting impact is far more significant. Last night, demonstrators at Cairo University supporting the President were fired upon using automatic weapons. Twenty people died and hunderds were injured.
There are people in Egypt and around the world that continue to try to justify the calls for early presidential elections because of the large numbers of demonstrators and the validity of their grievances.

Let me be very clear. The protesters represent a wide spectrum of Egyptians and many of them have genuine, valid grievances. President Morsy’s approval rating is down.

Now let me be equally clear. Since January and again in the last couple of weeks the President has repeatedly called for national dialog. Equally repeatedly, the opposition refused to participate. Increasingly, the so-called liberals of Egypt escalated a rhetoric inviting the military to become the custodians of government in Egypt. The opposition has steadfastly declined every option that entails a return to the ballot box.

Yesterday, the President received an initiative from an alliance of parties supporting constitutional legitimacy. He discussed it with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense and all three of them agreed that it presented an excellent path for Egypt out of its current impasse. The initiative called for a full change of cabinet, a prime minister acceptable to all, changing the public prosecutor, agreement on constitutional amendments, and a reconciliation commission.

And let us also be clear. The President did not have to offer all these concessions. In a democracy, there are simple consequences for the situation we see in Egypt: the President loses the next election or his party gets penalized in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Anything else is mob rule.

In the last year we have been castigated by foreign governments, foreign media, and rights groups whenever our reforms in the areas of rights and freedoms did not keep pace with the ambitions of some or adhere exactly to the forms used in other cultures. The silence of all of those voices with an impending military coup is hypocritical and that hypocrisy will not be lost on a large swathe of Egyptians, Arabs and Muslims.

Many have seen fit in these last months to lecture us on how democracy is more than just the ballot box. That may indeed be true. But what is definitely true is that there is no democracy without the ballot box.

There are disturbing reports from Pakistan that an 11 years old Rimshah Masih, possibly suffering from Down syndrome is being accused of blasphemy. Blasphemy laws in Pakistan seem to have bring more insult to Islam than the people they wrongly or unreasonably accused for blasphemy.

They seem to be some criminal minded morons who accused an eleven years old Christian girl for a so called crime, she might not be aware off doing. A serious revision of these laws is required on the basis of Quran and Sunnah for revision or repealing these laws which have brought shame for Muslims.

Also those who are using this laws for their evil motives should be brought to justice as well.

People have the right to exercise their religion especially when Quran has given us clear directions about freedom of religion and justice.

“There is no compulsion in religion” (Al-baqarah, 256)

“O ye who believe! Be steadfast witnesses for Allah in equity, and let not hatred of any people seduce you that ye deal not justly. Deal justly, that is nearer to your duty. Observe your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is Informed of what ye do.” [Al-maeda ,8]

But it seems emotions have taken over the teachings of Quran and Sunnah. Our Prophet (S.A.W) showed kindness to his worst enemies and even cared about the well being of an old lady who used to throw garbage at him.

We support Rimshah Masih and demand changing or repealing blasphemy laws in Pakistan.

Looking at the history of Pakistan, it seems society here was a bit open-minded with respect to religious and social class differences. No one makes much fuss about a person being religious or secular, 5 times prayer person or a full party person, Mr. or Mullah etc. It was the same Pakistan where Sheikh Mujeeb and Maulana Maududi both Sunni men (one secular and other religious) supported a Shia Lady Fatimah Jinnah against a Sunni Male dictator (Ayub Khan).

People blame Afghan-Soviet War, Iranian Revolution and attempts to replicate it in Pakistan or traditional Red/Green blocks struggle for current intolerance. But the main thing which I see is the gradual tight grip of centralized power structure over the lives and business affairs of the people. The tight grip of ruling elite consisting of Military and Feudal class, supported time to time by so-called liberals in the name of centralized secularism or so-called theocratic mindsets in the name of religion, made it clear to various groups in society that only method of honorable survival is to capture the center and control the lives of others.

The philosophy of centralist control of power is a gift of continuous martial laws, rise of socialism and resulting drives to counter the first two through theocratic ideology. If we look at Islam, its doctrine is based on rule of law not rule of government or central authority. Supremacy belongs only to God means no one else has supremacy and everyone is equal before law. Sharia cannot be imposed on non-Muslims as there is no compulsion in religion. One cannot simply make people pious or secular by law. It’s a matter of freewill which should be respected for mutual existence with peace and harmony.

Even Sharia is limited to very few things where state can interfere and so there is a distinction between Sin and Crime. Similarly the unnecessary control of state in the name of illicit taxes (taxes like income or sales tax can only be right if extortion is a right thing), semi-socialist economic and power structure, and unjust regulatory authorities also contribute to this problem of strong center and power struggle to control the center. Neither centralized secularism nor theocracy represent the freedom of choice given to a person by Islam for deciding his ways to achieve piety as long as those choices don’t inversely impact others in a clear way. Even the adultery laws (part of Muslim sharia law and being a Muslim is a choice not compulsion according to Quranic teachings) requires 4 willing witnesses giving credible evidence which shows that specific acts of adultery were happening so openly that they were harming society which can include kids and other groups which can get negative influences.

Even in that room is given for other religions and state has to respect the laws and values of other religions (see example Meesaq e Madina). But now it seems people have a habit into poking in the affairs of others that what they are doing in their houses, hotel rooms, mosques etc. This is not just limited to so-called religious people but our so-called self-righteous pseudo liberals have a similar issues of poking in other issues and labeling others with different names because of their religious practices. Labeling someone a terrorist because of beard or other religious symbolism. It seems in Pakistan pseudo liberal breed has mutated into pro-imperialism and pro-war sectarian and social class fascists. Many so called religious groups have considered to be something related to putting nose in the lives of others.

We need to realize that we are too diversified to have a centralized system. Our cultures, values and ways differ from province to province, city to city or event town to town. We cannot make Karachi and Khyber culturally same by force nor we can force people to follow one ideology. One size fits all simply is not a solution for our diversified society. We need decentralization of legislation, economy and governance with minimum(or no) involvement of state in personal affairs and business of the people. Dispute resolution requirements, defense and some other issues might require us to make some common arrangements but they can be made more transparent, flexible and accountable based on the principles of justice, freedom and equality before law. It is high time for the state to give up its authoritarian control over the lives and businesses of its people for a more breathable environment.

SUKKUR: Faryal Shah (Rinkle Kumari) appeared before the media on Thursday and made it clear that she had not been kidnapped and had not been forced to convert to Islam and marry Naveed Shah.

Faryal said that she had converted to Islam and had married Naveed Shah of her own free will, and that nobody had pressurised her into this. Reading out the Kalma-e-Tayyaba, Faryal said she was a Muslim girl and therefore had nothing to do with her parents.

Faryal (Rinkle Kumari) and her husband Naveed Shah were produced in front of the Sindh High Court (SHC) Sukker bench on Thursday morning amid tight security.

The couple was escorted by SSP Ghotki Pir Mohammad Shah along with a heavy contingent of police. Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) MNA Mian Abdul Haq of Bharchoondi Sharif, his son Mian Mohammad Aslam and a large number of their followers were also present.

The couple through their lawyer, Achar Gabole, had filed a constitutional petition stating that their lives were under threat from the relatives of the girl, who had been issuing threats of dire consequences.

Answering a question on threats to their lives, she said, “Our lives are under threat from my maternal uncle Raj Kumar”. She once again made it clear that she was a Muslim and wanted to live with her husband Naveed Shah.

Advocate Mohammad Murad Lund, who was representing Faryal’s grandfather Manohar Lal, told The Express Tribune that the single bench comprising of Justice Ahmed Ali Shaikh without recording the statement of the girl had ordered SSP Ghotki to provide protection to the couple and ensure that they are produced before the SHC chief justice in Karachi on March 12.

Advocate Mohammad Murad Lund kept on insisting that, the girl was under pressure due to the presence of a large number of Bharchoondi Sharif followers. He said everything will become “crystal clear” in Karachi, as the girl would be able to record her statement in a tension free atmosphere.

Mian Mohammad Aslam of Bharchoondi Sharif said that everyone had seen that Faryal was neither under pressure and had not said a word against the Pirs. “Rather she gave a statement against her own maternal uncle who is threatening to kill her.”

He said his father, PPP MNA Mian Abdul Haq had also come to the court because the girl’s parents had requested that they wanted to meet their daughter, but they didn’t come to see her.

Aslam said when the couple had come to Dargah Bharchoondi Sharif on February 24, Faryal had spoken to her parents on his instructions and had told them that she had come there to convert to Islam and marry Naveed Shah.

“I personally requested them to come over and meet their daughter to see for themselves that she was not under pressure, but they didn’t’ come,” Mian Aslam said.

He once again said that neither Islam nor the law of the land allowed forced conversion.

This seems really pathetic. there is no room for these type of actions neither in constitution nor in Islam. forceful conversion is not allowed and directly against Quran. I think human rights organizations especially some of rich or political class hindu community member can raise the issue in high court or supreme court or even in Sharia Court as it is a direct violation of Islamic law as well. Only conversion allowed is voluntary conversion by heart. Also I believe Islamic organizations can help in this as it is a direct insult and misuse of Islam.

The incident is of Sind. I believe there are four major crimes on which Pakistan Civil Society and Courts should look at :

1) Abduction of a minor girl

2) Forced Conversion

3) Marriage and perhaps Forced Sex (Rape)

4) Misuse of Islam and damaging Islam’s image

I hope some action will be taken by Civil Society, Religious and Political Parties, Media and Courts.

KARACHI, 27 February 2012 (IRIN) – Sixteen-year-old Ameena Ahmed*, now living in the town of Rahim Yar Khan in Pakistan’s Punjab Province, does not always respond when her mother-in-law calls out to her.
“Even after a year of `marriage’ I am not used to my new name. I was called Radha before,” she told IRIN on a rare occasion when she was allowed to go to the corner shop on her own to buy vegetables.
Ameena, or Radha as she still calls herself, was abducted from Karachi about 13 months ago by a group of young men who offered her ice-cream and a ride in their car. Before she knew what was happening, she was dragged into a larger van, and driven to an area she did not know.
She was then pressured into signing forms which she later found meant she was married to Ahmed Salim, 25; she was converted to a Muslim after being asked to recite some verses in front of a cleric. She was obliged to wear a veil. Seven months ago, Ameena, who has not seen her parents or three siblings since then and “misses them a lot”, moved with her new family to southern Punjab.
“The abduction and kidnapping of Hindu girls is becoming more and more common,” Amarnath Motumal, a lawyer and leader of Karachi’s Hindu community, told IRIN. “This trend has been growing over the past four or five years, and it is getting worse day by day.”
He said there were at least 15-20 forced abductions and conversions of young girls from Karachi each month, mainly from the multi-ethnic Lyari area. The fact that more and more people were moving to Karachi from the interior of Sindh Province added to the dangers, as there were now more Hindus in Karachi, he said.
“They come to search for better schooling, for work and to escape growing extremism,” said Motumal who believes Muslim religious schools are involved in the conversion business.
“Hindus are non-believers. They believe in many gods, not one, and are heretics. So they should be converted,” said Abdul Mannan, 20, a Muslim student. He said he would be willing to marry a Hindu girl, if asked to by his teachers, “because conversions brought big rewards from Allah [God]. But later I will marry a `real’ Muslim girl as my second wife,” he said.
According to local law, a Muslim man can take more than one wife, but rights activists argue that the law infringes the rights of women and needs to be altered.
Motumal says Hindu organizations are concerned only with the “forced conversion” of girls under 18. “Adult women are of course free to choose,” he said.

“Lured away”
Sunil Sushmt, 40, who lives in a village close to the city of Mirpurkhas in central Sindh Province, said his 14-year-old daughter was “lured away” by an older neighbour and, her parents believe, forcibly converted after marriage to a Muslim. “She was a child. What choice did she have?” her father asked. He said her mother still cries for her “almost daily” a year after the event.

Sushmat is also concerned about how his daughter is being treated. “We know many converts are treated like slaves, not wives,” he said.
According to official figures, Hindus based mainly in Sindh make up 2 percent of Pakistan’s total population of 165 million. “We believe this figure could be higher,” Motumal said.

According to media reports, a growing number of Hindus have been fleeing Pakistan, mainly for neighbouring India. The kidnapping of girls and other forms of persecution is a factor in this, according to those who have decided not to stay in the country any longer.
“My family has lived in Sindh for generations,” Parvati Devi, 70, told IRIN. “But now I worry for the future of my granddaughters and their children. Maybe we too should leave,” she said. “The entire family is seriously considering this.”
*not her real name

ISLAMABAD: A five member bench of the Supreme Court has decided to refer the six options relating to the NRO implementation case to the Chief Justice for constitution of a larger bench for hearing of these options.

Announcing the verdict on NRO implementation case‚ the bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa said the six options are being handed over to the Attorney General.

01: To initiate the contempt of court proceedings against the Chief Executive and the Secretary Law for not implementing the NRO verdict.

02: To declare the chief executive ineligible from the membership of the Parliament.

03: The court may form a commission to get the verdict implemented.

04: The people themselves decide on the issue and the court exhibit patience.

05: Contempt proceedings against Chairman Nab may be initiated.

06: The action may be taken against President for violating the Constitution.
The Supreme Court said in its order in NRO implementation case that the government has failed to implement the verdict.’The government is not taking interest to observe the order for the last two years. We knew that the actions we are about to take they may be unpleasant.’

‘The court has taken oath to defend the Constitution. The prime minister respected the party over the Constitution.’

‘The president in an interview to Geo News said his government would not implement one part of NRO verdict.’

As per Article 189 and 190 all institutions are bound to help the apex court, the order said.

‘Prima Facie the prime minister is not an honest man and violated his oath.’

The court recommended the case to the chief justice to form a larger bench to hear the case on January 16.
A Five-member bench of Supreme Court (SC) headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa resumed the hearing of the case pertaining to the implementation of National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) verdict today.